Official Report 1011KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-14719, in the name of Anas Sarwar, on the housing emergency. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak button.
14:55
Scotland is in the midst of a housing crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. After repeated calls, for months, for a housing emergency to be declared, the Government was finally shamed into declaring one on 15 May, in a debate that was brought to the chamber by Scottish Labour.
The declaration of a housing emergency after 17 years of the Scottish National Party Government was a significant moment, and it signalled our collective understanding of the need to act to tackle the crisis. However, the simple fact is that words are cheap. What really matters is what the Government does to tackle the housing crisis, not what it says in the chamber.
The sad reality is that the Government’s track record on tackling the housing emergency is woeful. This afternoon, people on the Labour and Government benches will trade numbers and statistics, but we should never forget in the heat of the debate what those numbers represent. They are young mothers raising their families in temporary accommodation without a promise of a home. They are Scotland’s most vulnerable people, who have nothing but a sleeping bag to their name and who are exposed to the cold nights of winter and the dangers of life on the street. They are young children who have no home to call their own and who are spending their childhood moving from hostel to bed and breakfast. We should never forget that.
Let us look at the facts of the Government’s record on housing and homelessness. On the Government’s watch, we have had more than 40,000 applications for homelessness support made in the past year; that is the highest number in a decade. Shamefully, we now have record numbers of children in temporary accommodation, without a home to call their own. That is more than 10,000 children who are left homeless on the Scottish National Party Government’s watch.
At the same time, the number of young people living in bed and breakfasts has soared by more than 900 per cent in only the past three years. That is shameful. There have been 704,000 breaches of the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order in 2023-24. That number has almost doubled during the past year. There have been 7,915 instances where households requiring temporary accommodation have not been offered temporary accommodation by local authorities. That is 17 times higher than last year—17 times higher in a single year.
The SNP’s record on house building is arguably even worse. House building has fallen off a cliff, with the worst yearly number of starts on record. There were 19,293 homes completed in the year to end June 2024, which is a decrease of 4,003—or 17 per cent—compared with the previous year. In the year to the end of June 2024, the number of completions and starts as part of the affordable housing supply programme was down by 14 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, compared with the year before.
Will the member take an intervention?
Will the member take an intervention?
Yes.
From which member is Mr Sarwar taking an intervention?
Keith Brown.
Oh!
Good choice. Mr Sarwar will understand that part of what constitutes affordability—as well as rent and mortgage costs—is energy costs, which increased by 10 per cent as a result of Labour’s decision yesterday. However, Labour also has figures that say that around 400 people will die in the UK from the decision to withdraw winter fuel allowance. How many of those deaths will happen in Scotland as a result of Labour’s decision?
I remind Mr Brown that the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets sets energy pricing in the country. That is why we have to reform our energy market, and that is what the Labour Government is getting to grips with.
What I would say to Mr Brown is this: is he counting the number of people who are dying on our streets because of homelessness? All they have is a sleeping bag. Is he counting the number of people who are dying in temporary accommodation without a home to call their own? Instead, there is always somebody else to blame. Instead, the SNP is always pointing fingers somewhere else rather than taking responsibility for its own record.
To demonstrate that Ms Grahame will have a more sensible question than Mr Brown, I will take the intervention from Ms Grahame.
I certainly hope so. Does the member agree with me that the impact of Brexit on construction costs and on the availability of construction workers has had an impact on house building throughout the United Kingdom?
Absolutely. That is why we have to reset the relationship with the European Union and fix the mess that is Brexit, which was left by the previous Tory Government. However, that does not explain why we have had 17 years of failure and levels of home building that are the lowest since Margaret Thatcher.
I will go back to what I was saying about the social sector. The social sector built 5,053 homes in the year ending June 2024, which is down 25 per cent on the previous year. The number of completions for all sectors was the lowest since June 2018 and the number of starts was the lowest since June 2013, in both the social and the private sectors.
Under the SNP Government, housing association new-build numbers are at the lowest levels since Margaret Thatcher, and the Government is miles off track from meeting its own affordable house building target. Under the SNP Government, fewer homes are being built, targets are being missed on a yearly basis and homelessness is on the rise. Every number is a human being in need of help and every missed target is the breaking of dreams, hopes and aspirations. However, when the full extent of the housing and homelessness crisis in Scotland was revealed, housing minister Paul McLennan told STV News that the SNP Government has “a good track record” on preventing homelessness. Really? Is that the best that we can do? Frankly, that response was inept and shameful.
Yesterday, Mr McLennan stated that the SNP Government was pulling out all the stops on the issue—that is the same SNP Government that cut £196 million from the housing budget, cheered on by every member on the SNP benches. It is simply wrong for him to attempt to spin that away or, as per usual, not think about the human cost of the SNP’s decisions. Fellow Scots are sleeping rough with nowhere to go—some families in housing and more in hostels and B and Bs—but that is symptomatic of an SNP Government that is completely out of touch with reality. This is a Government that never faces up to its own record and instead tries to deflect blame on to others.
When Scotland is revealed to be in a housing and homelessness emergency, the minister says that Government has “a good track record”. When one in six Scots is revealed to be on national health service waiting lists and accident and emergency is revealed to be in disarray, the health secretary says that there is no crisis and that the Government has a good track record. When alcohol and drug deaths are on the rise, what does the minister say? Nothing to see here—the Government has a good track record and the plan is working. When our education system was plunged into chaos and Scotland slid down the international league tables, what did the minister say? Scotland’s education system was never that good anyway, the SNP Government has a good track record and its plan is working.
Scotland deserves so much better than this out-of-touch SNP Government that is failing Scotland day after day after day. Frankly, its ministers are embarrassing, its performance is inept and the Government’s record is nothing but shameful and woeful. From housing to the economy, from the NHS to our schools, this SNP Government is taking Scotland in the wrong direction. Housing is entirely devolved.
I would like to clarify something with Anas Sarwar—would he agree with me that the £90 million that we currently spend as a Government to mitigate the effect of the bedroom tax would be better used to deliver the 700 new-build homes that it could otherwise be spent on? Would he join me in agreeing that the bedroom tax should be scrapped?
First, I will need to educate the cabinet secretary on the difference between revenue and capital, because she clearly does not understand that. Secondly, we wanted the devolution of powers around welfare because we wanted the ability to make different decisions here in Scotland. That is what we argued for and that is what we got.
Housing is entirely devolved, and the responsibility for this crisis lies squarely with this SNP Government, this SNP cabinet secretary and this SNP housing minister. There is nowhere to hide and no one else to blame. This is the price that the people of Scotland are paying for an SNP Government that John Swinney himself admitted has been focused on what it cannot do rather than on what it can do.
That is why it is time for a new approach and a new direction—
Will the member take an intervention?
I have taken three or four interventions already.
Accepting that the housing emergency exists is only the first step in ending the crisis. We need new ideas and new leadership. We need an approach that promotes investment and makes Scotland an attractive place to invest in housing. We need to ensure that legislation that is designed to protect renters and home owners does not inadvertently chase away new investment. We need a new partnership and an understanding between the Scottish Government, local authorities, housing associations, the private sector and the third sector. We need joined-up working to deliver the new affordable and social homes that Scotland so desperately needs.
We need action to retrofit existing homes to make them fit for the future and to fix up derelict homes so that they can be safe for families to thrive in. We need an end to the idea that a housing policy that works for Edinburgh will automatically work for the Highlands, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway or the Western Isles. Local communities know best about how to tackle the housing crisis in their own areas and they should not be overlooked.
We need an end to the politics of the press release and the meaningless target. Instead, it is time for politics that is about outcomes, not empty promises; a politics of delivery, not delusion, as we see from members on the SNP benches; and a politics that puts the needs of the country before the needs of the ruling party.
Everyone in the chamber has a solemn duty to work day and night to look after the most vulnerable in our society. On this vital issue, we cannot let issues of personal or party loyalty cloud our judgment. That is why this is not a debate about the constitution, and it should not even be a debate about party politics: the debate should be about the young man who will walk the dark streets of Glasgow tonight in search of a warm doorway in which to try to sleep, hoping that the mere and meagre possessions that he still has will be there when he wakes up. It is about the young mother living with her children in temporary accommodation who has to tell her children every night that they will have their own home one day. It is about the child who will do their homework tonight not in a home of their own but on a small desk in a hostel bedroom. We can, and we must, do better than that.
The right to housing is a fundamental human right, as recognised by the United Nations. In 2024 in Scotland, that fundamental human right is unavailable to thousands of our most vulnerable people. The crisis is not inevitable: it is the direct result of Government action and its inaction. To allow the situation to persist would be to bury our heads in the sand and allow some of our most vulnerable to weather the storm alone. It does not have to be that way. Scots should not have to wait a single day more for the Government to wake up to the housing crisis, change course and act to help those in need.
In closing, we have a chance to put the needs of the people of Scotland front and centre; to stand up for all those who find themselves without a home to call their own; and to stand up for all those for whom the dream of home ownership is currently just that—a dream. The Government has failed to act to tackle the housing emergency. That is not good enough. The failure must end. Scotland deserves better.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that the Scottish Government has failed to respond adequately to the housing emergency that the Parliament declared in May 2024.
15:08
I welcome the debate. First, I will address one of Mr Sarwar’s main points. He talked about new ideas, but he did not have any new ideas whatsoever, and he did not talk about how to pay for them, which is fundamental. If the member is going to talk about new ideas, he should bring them forward, as well as ideas for how we should pay for them in the budget. I am happy to have discussions with the member or Mr Griffin on that point.
There has been a great deal of activity since the previous debate on housing in May, in recognition of the challenges that our housing sector faces. I continue to take full responsibility for the Government’s response and I will not shy away from that. That is why I was pleased to update the Parliament on some of the activity in my statement yesterday, including the announcement of new investment of £22 million for affordable housing. I do not doubt in any way, shape or form that the challenges that we face are significant, but we are responding with a clear and urgent plan across three pillars: first, the need for high quality, permanent homes; secondly, ensuring that we have the right homes in the right places; and thirdly, addressing homelessness.
I will talk about the delivery of affordable housing. Of course, the cornerstone of our efforts is our commitment to deliver 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, with 70 per cent of those for social rent. That is a direct response to the growing demand for secure and affordable housing.
Achieving the target was made more difficult by rising inflation and by Brexit, which has been mentioned. I know that the member is talking about a reset for Brexit, but we need to rejoin the European Union to make sure that we get those benefits. Labour will not do that—it has already come out and said that. A reset will not be enough.
That has driven up the cost of materials. If the member speaks to developers, they will tell him that. They are still facing the same problems, but those problems are getting worse, and Brexit has an impact on that.
Although I recognise that Opposition members might prefer us not to draw attention to the impact of Tory or Labour UK Government decisions, there is an area that the UK Government must take responsibility for, which I will come on to in a little second.
There is no hiding the serious impact that those aspects are having on housing and homelessness levels not just in Scotland but across the UK. Some of the biggest issues in that regard are Brexit, the cost of living and inflation. In fact, Barratt Developments, which is the biggest home builder in the UK, said that Brexit and the cost of living were the main reasons why its home starts and completions had dropped.
The minister and I have been in the same meetings. Is he seriously telling me that the industry is not naming the Housing (Scotland) Bill as the single biggest impediment to getting investment? That is what it is telling me, and I bet that it is what it is telling him, too.
First, I have been in a number of meetings with Daniel Johnson. One of the key things that we have said is that we would introduce amendments to the bill, and Mr Johnson knows that.
Secondly, that was a direct quote from Barratt on what is having the biggest impact across the UK. Inflation and interest rates are the biggest barriers that it faces at the moment.
Despite those challenges, by the end of June 2024, we have still delivered 22,743 homes towards our target. Seventy-six per cent of those are for social rent. It is estimated that 3,000 households with children were helped into affordable housing in the year to June, and half—
Will the minister will take an intervention?
I will.
The minister said that he is taking the issue seriously and that he is making progress, yet, in his constituency, 353 people were in temporary accommodation and nearly 800 people applied for homelessness last year, which is an increase of 13 per cent on the previous year. It was his Government that slashed the housing budget last year. Will the minister tell Parliament what happened when he was told that his housing budget was going to be slashed? Did he oppose it, did he threaten to resign, or did he simply capitulate so that he could keep taking his pay cheque when people in his constituency were searching to put a roof over their heads?
I am not going to take any lessons in financial management from the member. The biggest cut that we had last year was a 9 per cent capital cut from the UK Government. I never heard anything from Tory members, including Mr Hoy, about that.
The biggest cut that we suffered in our budget was a 62 per cent cut to our financial transactions budget. As Mr Hoy knows, I meet local authorities, including East Lothian Council, to talk about that issue.
As I was saying, on the homes that we delivered, more than 3,000 households with children were helped into affordable housing this year into June, and half of Scotland’s local authorities have reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation in the past year.
The biggest challenges that we face are in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian. That is why we targeted funding, and I will come on to that.
Mr Sarwar mentioned affordable homes in rural areas. Between 2017 and 2023, we have delivered more than 10,000 affordable homes. The challenge that we need to face is not just in urban parts of Scotland but in rural parts of Scotland. We recognise that we need to do more.
We are taking radical action to address the acute challenge of building homes and the significant gap in Scotland's capital budget. We are taking action to bring investment into housing through the housing investment task force, which was established in April, which is before the housing emergency was declared.
The Scottish Government has committed £100 million as a basis to grow that, with institutional investment, to at least £500 million to support the construction of around 2,800 mid-market-rent homes. Yesterday, I announced a further investment of £22 million in affordable housing through our charitable bond programme. The programme enabled an additional investment of £71 million into our programme last year, supporting the delivery of more than 600 social rented homes.
I come back to Mr Hoy’s point. Despite Westminster cutting financial transactions funding by 62 per cent since 2022, that is an example of how we can make a real difference in people’s lives when we have the necessary levers.
It comes back to sharing responsibility, Mr Sarwar. [Interruption.] It is about taking responsibility. The UK Government has an opportunity in three or four weeks to reinstitute the funding that has been cut by 62 per cent. That would make a massive difference in terms of what we are trying to do. Labour should be taking on the responsibility of speaking to its Chancellor of the Exchequer.
On planning, in June we issued a call for action on the housing emergency to planning authorities. The Government expects an emergency-led focus in decision making on plans and applications. Our national planning framework has minimum housing figures, and I look for them to be exceeded in plans as they come forward locally. The Minister for Public Finance and the chief planner have also made it clear that developments by small and medium-sized enterprise house builders are part of the solution to the emergency, particularly in rural areas and on brownfield sites.
Following the consultation earlier this year, we will bring forward a series of actions to increase resources and capacity in planning services. I am delighted that we have now established Scotland’s first-ever planning hub, which is an innovative way for planning authorities to access additional resources to make faster decisions.
Having a warm, safe place to call home is a foundation of family life and a direct contributor to tackling poverty. We know that the best way to end homelessness is to prevent it. The proposed homelessness duties in the Housing (Scotland) Bill will support the transition to a system that is based on shared public responsibility, early intervention and, of course, more choice and control.
It is really important that in this debate we do not forget about the prevention duties. I urge people to talk about that. The Government remains committed to delivering a robust system of rent controls and tenants protections throughout that bill. Those measures, coupled with homelessness prevention duties, will ensure the affordability of housing costs and improve tenants’ rights.
Will the minister take an intervention?
Will the minister give way?
I have already taken a number of interventions, so I am struggling for time.
The Government’s actions on homelessness are consistently undermined when we are forced to spend precious resources by diverting £90 million to mitigate the impact of the UK Government’s welfare cuts, including the bedroom tax. That is money that could otherwise be used to build new homes.
The Government understands the urgency of the crisis, and we are using all our powers to address it. However, it should be acknowledged that Westminster’s policies have left us grappling with an emergency that requires systemic change and investment at UK-wide level. I once again call on the Labour UK Government to use its upcoming budget to scrap the bedroom tax, reverse the 9 per cent capital cut to Scotland’s budget and permanently uplift local housing allowance.
I move amendment S6M-14719.4, to leave out from “believes” to end and insert:
“agrees that Scotland is in a housing emergency; notes the Scottish Government’s ongoing work with partners, including COSLA and the Housing to 2040 Board, on priorities in tackling the housing emergency; highlights the Scottish Government’s commitment to provide £80 million across 2024-25 and 2025-26 to support acquisitions and bring empty social homes back into use, bringing the Affordable Housing Supply Programme investment to almost £600 million this year, and its commitment to £100 million for 2,800 mid-market rent homes; welcomes the investment of £22 million in affordable housing through charitable bonds and the launch of a planning hub to improve capacity and skills; notes the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which includes key measures on preventing homelessness, including action through rent controls, and calls on the UK Government to reverse the 9% capital budget cut, to permanently uprate local housing allowance to the 30th percentile of local rents, and to scrap the so-called bedroom tax in its Autumn Budget.”
Thank you, minister. I call Miles Briggs to speak to and move amendment S6M-14719.2.
15:16
I thank the Labour Party for using its debating time to debate the motion on the housing emergency. I also thank the organisations that have provided helpful briefings ahead of the debate.
At the election in 2021, every party in this chamber signed up to work to end rough sleeping in Scotland by the end of this parliamentary session. However, that goal is now further away than ever, with the latest statistics showing a significant increase. In 2022-23, there were 450 incidences in which local authorities were unable to offer temporary accommodation. In the space of the past year, that has soared to 7,915 occasions. Indeed, the Salvation Army has questioned the accuracy of those reported numbers—it thinks that the total is higher and that the situation is much worse on the ground.
However, these are not just statistics. As Anas Sarwar said, these are our friends, our neighbours and, in some cases, our family members.
On Monday evening, I walked along Princes Street here in the capital and witnessed people setting up tents for the night in shop doorways. As a Lothian MSP, I know from trying to assist constituents and from the organisations that work with people who are experiencing homelessness that the situation is getting worse, but solutions are also becoming more limited. Where I live in Edinburgh, I have witnessed people setting up tents in graveyards. The capital is at the epicentre of the housing emergency in Scotland. We need a new approach, and we need the situation to be treated as an emergency by ministers now.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will if I can get some time back.
There is no time in hand. It is up to the member whether he takes an intervention.
I will if it is very brief.
Will the member acknowledge his Government’s decision to cut the capital budget by 9 per cent, to cut the financial transactions budget by 62 per cent and to freeze local housing allowance? Will he also acknowledge that the way in which it dealt with asylum-seeker dispersal has made an impact in Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland?
This debate is about the Scottish Government taking responsibility. The fact that ministers were dragged to the chamber to do that at the previous debate on this topic tells us everything that we need to know about the Scottish Government’s record on the matter.
As Anas Sarwar said, we have just heard words from the Government—we have not seen action. The Scottish Government might have declared a housing emergency, but we have not seen an emergency response from the Scottish Government. I do not think that even the Scottish Government’s greatest cheerleaders would say that what we have seen from ministers to date is anywhere close to the response that we need. Instead, we have a situation that is getting worse. It is clear that, without action, homelessness levels across our country will increase further.
Since 2019, the Scottish Government has set up 10 homelessness working groups: the homelessness prevention and strategy group, the homelessness ministerial oversight group, the homelessness temporary accommodation standards framework working group, the temporary accommodation task and finish group, the homelessness prevention task and finish group, the measuring progress—ironically—task and finish group, the rapid rehousing transition plans sub-group, the Scotland prevention review group, the homelessness and rough sleeping action group and the youth homelessness prevention pathway. I do not question ministers’ hopes that those groups would deliver, but they have not. Ministers need to be honest that they have failed and that things are getting worse on their watch.
Fundamentally, that is because local authorities are not delivering and cannot deliver their statutory duties. Ministers say that local authorities must play their role, but that entirely misses the point. Local authorities have no options left. There are no more former B and Bs and guest houses—they are all now full. We need a plan, and we need ministers to lead on delivering it. I welcome the fact that the sector has made some really important emergency response proposals to the Government. The minister should be driving forward those actions now.
Every empty council home and social housing property should have been audited and a return-to-use plan should have been developed by now. There are 3,000 empty properties here in the capital alone. We need to urgently build the homes that Scotland needs. The data on home completions points to a fundamental collapse in the housing sector, and we need that to be turned around. Homes for Scotland says that the housing and homelessness figures underline the collapse in house building, and that that is having devastating consequences. Speak to any home builder and they will tell you that the planning and consenting processes are the biggest inhibitor of housing delivery in all tenures.
We need an urgent review of national planning framework 4 and council planning policy. Ministers have ignored the concerns that have been expressed about land supply. It was simply not good enough for the minister to say yesterday that planning responsibilities sit with Ivan McKee. In March, the former UK Conservative Government started work on proposals to introduce a new accelerated planning service. We need that in Scotland, as well.
Does the member agree that the 10-year wait for compulsory sale orders is completely unacceptable?
I do, and we have not seen any progress from ministers on that, either.
The minister has an opportunity to lead by example and demonstrate that he can actually make things happen. If I was in the minister’s shoes, I would undertake an urgent review of planning policy during the October recess and return to the Parliament in November with Scottish statutory instruments that can help to address those concerns.
Ministers need to accept that they have been responsible for creating many of the problems that we face today. Their only answer to the ever-growing housing and homelessness emergency now appears to be the wholly misguided rent cap and proposed rent control policy, which have resulted in much-needed housing developments being put on hold as well as inflicting eye-watering rent increases on tenants and resulting in new tenants being completely priced out of the market. Ministers want to take forward rent controls in the Housing (Scotland) Bill, when we know that investors will continue to be put off investing in Scotland while that policy remains in place. The Deputy First Minister has been told that rent controls do not work, but ministers will press ahead with them regardless.
The Housing (Scotland) Bill has the potential to address some of the drivers of homelessness, such as those highlighted by Marie Curie in its briefing for the debate. There is little political disagreement on those but, fundamentally, we have a Housing (Scotland) Bill that does not contain any plans to build more houses. We simply cannot continue like this. We need leadership and a fresh approach. After 17 years in office, I know that it is difficult for ministers to say that they have failed but, in many cases, their policy decisions have negatively contributed to the situation that we now face in Scotland.
Will Miles Briggs give way?
I am in my final 10 seconds.
Ministers have 18 months left to try to turn the situation around. They should take responsibility and address this national emergency. There are ideas across the chamber. It is time for ministers to understand that they have failed and to help to turn the emergency around.
I move amendment S6M-14719.2, to insert at end:
“, following repeated calls from charities and local authorities to take urgent action to alleviate rising cases of homelessness and to tackle Scotland’s affordable housing shortage; notes that homelessness in Scotland has climbed to its worst level in more than a decade, with over 40,000 applications, and that, out of the 33,619 households assessed as homeless, there were over 15,000 children recorded; recognises that housing is a wholly devolved issue that the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration has mismanaged and exacerbated through rent controls and financial mismanagement, such as cutting £200 million from the housing budget; believes that by working together with developers, local authorities and landlords, more houses could be made available to buy and rent across Scotland; acknowledges that the SNP administration’s cladding remediation scheme has yet to complete work on any affected properties in Scotland and has only spent £9 million of the £97 million given by the UK Government to fix unsafe cladding; understands that the Scottish Government has failed to provide financial support for residents living in properties built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) that are at risk; notes that the SNP administration has presided over a collapse in the housebuilding sector, with a 17% decrease in all sector starts and completions in 2023-24; echoes the concerns expressed around land supply and the planning system, and that the Scottish Government has failed to produce a clear plan setting out how it will properly fund and implement the policies contained within the fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4), and calls on the Scottish Government to take responsibility by addressing this national emergency.”
15:24
Let us begin by remembering what a housing emergency means to people in Scotland. It is the lived experience of people being evicted from their homes because they cannot afford their rent. It is the collapse of rural and island communities because they cannot provide housing for families who want to live and contribute there. It is people making their bed on the side of the road.
In my region, I have been working with a family that has been stuck in temporary housing for two years because there is nothing suitable for their family’s special needs; a teacher who has a job but cannot find a home nearby and will have a lengthy daily commute; and a family that is urgently seeking suitable housing to accommodate the required care for one of their members, to allow them to be discharged from hospital and the family to be reunited.
Scottish Greens agree with the principle of declaring a housing emergency, but declaring a housing emergency is not enough. As I said five months ago, declaring a housing emergency must lead to collective action and shared responsibility to tackle the crisis, using all the means that are at our disposal.
It is therefore frustrating that Scottish Labour has once again brought to the chamber a debate using the rhetoric of a housing emergency without proposing any solutions. It is clear that at the root of this country’s housing emergency is the financialisation of our housing market. For too long, our economy has prioritised housing as investments to make money from, rather than homes for people and the bedrock of our communities. Calling a housing emergency while not proposing any changes to how we tax housing or fund public house building is disingenuous and plays politics with people’s lives.
During our time in government, the Scottish Greens raised the level of the additional dwelling supplement so that wealthy people buying second homes or extra investment properties would pay more tax to contribute to public services.
Will the member take an intervention?
Raising the rate of ADS further would raise important additional funding, which could go directly into building more affordable homes. I urge the minister to seriously consider that as part of the upcoming Scottish budget.
Will the member take an intervention?
I do not have a lot of time, so I need to press on.
We recognise that that alone will not be enough to raise the substantial investment that is required to build more affordable publicly owned homes in communities up and down Scotland—homes that are vital to addressing the housing emergency.
Will the member take an intervention—an extremely helpful one?
Scotland’s capital budget was gutted by the previous Tory Government through wilful cuts and the gradual erosion that has been caused by record-high inflation rates. We are now £1.6 billion worse off than we were five years ago. That is seriously limiting our ability to build good-quality housing, as well as replace our schools and hospitals and invest in public transport.
If Scottish Labour is serious about tackling the housing emergency, it must commit here today to ensuring that the UK Labour Government fully restores our capital spend at the upcoming UK budget and commits to it rising in line with inflation in future years.
For months now, I have been working with stakeholders on a range of immediate solutions. We must have proper investment in the retrofitting and refurbishment of existing buildings to provide additional affordable housing.
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
I will take an intervention from the minister. [Interruption.]
I thank the member for taking an intervention. I welcome her contribution. I put on record my thanks to the Greens for stating in their amendment their suggestions and ideas in relation to the motion. I confirm that the Government is looking at the recommendations to see what is possible within the current financial settlement. I will work with all members who want to deliver for the people of Scotland. Again, I thank Ariane Burgess for her suggestions on how we tackle the situation.
I thank the minister for his intervention.
As I said, there must be proper investment in the retrofitting and refurbishment of existing buildings, which will help us with not only the housing crisis but climate emissions reduction, by providing safe, cosy homes for people.
For the price of one new build, we can bring three empty properties back into use. I would like the minister to consider that in the upcoming budget. It will mean properly resourcing councils and communities to do that. We do not have to reinvent the wheel; we have a tremendous track record. In Campbeltown in Argyll, a once dilapidated town centre has been transformed by the council into a thriving place. In Dumfries, the community has taken the lead in turning empty buildings into homes in the town centre.
A key part of making that work will be to properly fund empty homes officers in all local authorities, so that bringing back empty properties can happen at pace. We must also recognise that empty flats above commercial properties could be homes, which could help to bring life back to the heart of our towns.
The other part of accomplishing the retrofitting of our towns and villages is the development of traditional building skills across the country. If we are to do that properly, we must take the training closer to communities through the provision of a mobile training unit. Rural and island communities must continue to be supported in their leadership by maintaining the rural and island housing fund and the Scottish land fund, which have been game changers in making it possible for communities to provide critical housing.
However, the cost of building housing in rural areas is three times the cost in other parts of Scotland. For island communities, it is even more. That is why I propose piloting a microhousing building standard to explore the possibility of building more homes for single people who desperately need homes. Microhousing offers an affordable way to meet that housing need quickly and affordably.
Along with those actions, to address the housing emergency, we must also have a robust system of tenant protections.
15:30
I hope that no homeless people were watching the minister’s contribution earlier. I know that he is not listening to me, but he should listen to people who are homeless and desperate for a house. His speech was just one excuse after another. It was another explanation of why other people are to blame for this, even though his party has been in power for 17 years.
I say to Mr Rennie that, of course, I listen to homeless people. One of the key issues for me is shared responsibility. The Scottish Government can do what it needs to do, but the financial context is an important part of that. I hope that, when it comes to the budget, Mr Rennie and his Liberal Democrat colleagues ask the UK Government to reverse the 9 per cent capital budget cut and the 62 per cent cut to financial transactions—and to look at local housing allowance, which has an impact on homelessness in Scotland. I hope that he will do that, because this is about shared responsibility.
Does the minister say that to his constituents who come to him desperate for a house? Does he go on about percentages? Does he go on about how other people are to blame—how Brexit this, how the UK Government that, and how even Wales is responsible somehow?
The minister needs to understand that this is a housing emergency. Since the Government agreed to declare the housing emergency, the situation has got even worse and the figures are even more depressing. The number of new starts has plummeted. The number of children in temporary accommodation is now more than 10,000, which is the highest that it has been since the minister’s party came to power. He should be ashamed of his Government’s record, but instead he invests more time in hunting for excuses as to why his Government has failed and why it is somebody else’s problem. That is the impression that I get, and I know that it is the impression of many people across the country.
It is heartbreaking. I have never seen the housing situation as bad as it is now. I have been in politics since 2006, and I initially represented Dunfermline. I thought that it could not get any worse than it was in Dunfermline at that point, but it is even worse now. Housing officers hold up their hands and admit that they cannot do anything—they have no options. How can that be the case? Imagine someone who is homeless and desperate for a house hearing that there is no hope of their getting a home and that they will be at the back of the queue if they have fewer than 100 points. That is embarrassing. This country should be much better than that. This Government should be much better than that. It should be open about its challenges and live up to its responsibilities, because it has contributed significantly to the problem.
Let us take the cladding investment point. We have a £97 million budget and the Government has spent £9 million. If we have the money, we should at least be getting on with that. The affordable housing budget has been cut by 37 per cent—it is down by £200 million. New starts for social housing are down, completions are down by 25 per cent, and new starts for all housing are down 17 per cent. We know the reason for that, but the minister does not want to admit it: it is the cumulative impact of his policies. It is not the individual policies themselves—we could argue the merits of each individual policy—but the cumulative impact, culminating in the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which is driving away investors.
The minister knows that, because he has been told. He has had meetings with the sector and he has been told that it has decided to invest elsewhere—in England, in Wales and in other parts of the world. The sector is investing there rather than here because of the rhetoric—it is “us and them”—and because of rent controls. Those factors are driving investment away, as are the national planning framework—it takes 62 weeks to get a major housing development through the process—the limitations in land supply and the new and proposed regulations, which it is estimated will cost an additional £30,000.
There is also the fact that the Government is considering going to the super-high standard of the Passivhaus. The minister knows that, as we have seen in East Dunbartonshire—it was reported just today—the cost of producing each of those individual houses is getting on for £500,000. Such houses are brilliant, but what about all the other houses that we could have built with that extra finance?
Will the member give way?
Not just now. I am into my flow.
Of course, we should go for really good standards, but why on earth does the Government have to show off and go for super-high standards when we have to produce volume and get factory-built facilities? That is the effort that we should go for.
The minister might not have noticed, but there is a housing emergency. Lots of people are desperate for homes. I want the minister to respond significantly in his concluding remarks and address what is in his gift—the things that he could do right now. I want him to send a message to the private sector and private landlords that we cannot address the crisis without them.
We need the Government and private providers to work in partnership. Instead of having an us-and-them attitude, let us create a proper partnership to build the houses that we need, to a good standard, to make a difference and deal with the housing emergency so that I do not have tell my constituents that I have absolutely nothing for them because the Government has failed to respond with the powers that it has.
We move to the open debate.
15:36
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests in relation to a small share that I have in a family home.
The whole of Scotland faces a housing crisis, but it can have a much wider impact on the community in rural areas, and not only on the people who are affected, because it leads to depopulation and communities disappearing. It also leads to economic decline. Employers are doing well and are crying out for staff, but young people have left those areas, so they no longer work in those businesses, and employers cannot import the labour that they need because of the lack of houses. We are going back to more tied houses, which is not good for any worker or community.
There is a lack of key workers in such areas. There is a lack of rural general practitioners. Hospitals are closing wards because of a lack of staff. We have seen that in Skye, which was in the headlines recently. I have been told by NHS Highland that it has no difficulty in recruiting people to Skye—who would not want to live there? However, none of the people it recruits can find a home there.
The Gaelic language is also being lost. Because people who speak Gaelic in their communities cannot find homes or jobs there and are forced out, the language is diluted.
In rural areas, waiting lists look smaller because the population is sparse and, therefore, numbers are smaller, but the situation is just as damaging. In Argyll and Bute, 3,290 people were on the housing waiting list as of November last year. There was a 28 per cent increase in homelessness, but the average house price in the area was seven times the average income. That is a common issue throughout the Highlands and Islands. The housing market is way beyond the means of the local population, and people are being forced out.
Highland Council requires 24,000 homes to be built in the next 10 years, because of the green freeport as well as the issues that I have outlined, but its historic debt means that 42 per cent of its revenue from council housing is just paying loan charges. That leaves little for keeping the housing stock in a fit state and far less for building the houses that we need.
The Scottish Government claims to have built more than 10,000 rural houses since 2016, but the response to a freedom of information request shows that it has delivered only 3,219 affordable rural homes in the Highlands and Islands region since 2017. The majority of those homes were built in the Highland Council area, including many homes within the city of Inverness, which is not rural. Argyll and Bute got 351 affordable rural homes, Orkney got 160 and Shetland got 147.
The Scottish Government’s definition of rural, for house building purposes, includes areas beside the Edinburgh and Aberdeen city bypasses and areas close to the centre of Inverness, as well as commuter towns just outside Edinburgh and Glasgow. For example, since 2017, 152 affordable so-called rural homes have been built in the city of Edinburgh, which is more than have been built in Shetland and is level pegging with Orkney. That is simply not right. There is, of course, a housing crisis in our cities, but rural areas cannot compete with the cost of building in cities, so already fewer rural homes are being built.
I am listening very carefully to Ms Grant. The Government, Ms Grant and other MSPs who represent rural areas could encourage organisations, public bodies and others to take advantage of the affordable homes for key workers fund and the rural and islands housing fund, which provide support and have demand-led budgets. We can genuinely work together with NHS boards, private developers and landowners to see how we can address some of those challenges, because I take very seriously the point that Ms Grant has raised.
Of course—I am doing that with local authorities in my area. The point that I am making is that it is simply deceptive for the Government to include city areas in rural house building targets and then pat itself on the back for building so-called rural homes in cities. That is simply not right.
The Scottish Government has promised that 11,000 homes will be built in rural areas. That represents 10 per cent of its house building target, but 17 per cent of the population live in rural Scotland. Again, rural Scotland is losing out in relation not only to the targets but to the areas that are designated as rural.
The target is 10 per cent, but it is a demand-led programme, as the cabinet secretary touched on. Ten per cent is the minimum, and the cabinet secretary has offered to discuss the issue with the member.
If the minimum of 10 per cent includes houses in urban areas, houses will be built in urban areas—of course—because it is cheaper.
In addition, planning legislation is designed for urban areas. It is almost impossible to build in rural areas, because pavements and other infrastructure must be built. That is simply not required in urban areas. Rural areas also face challenges with holiday homes and second homes, but the Government’s guarantee will ensure that houses are not built in rural areas.
The national housing crisis requires to be addressed, but the Scottish Government also needs to look at its policy framework. Its solution needs to be island proofed and must not disadvantage rural areas. The cost of building in rural areas is huge, so it is little wonder that the houses are being built in urban areas. There are no economies of scale in rural areas, because, in reality, a rural community will need only one or two homes in a village to meet local need. Highland Council estimates that the cost of building in rural areas is £400,000 per unit, but it can cost at least a quarter more just to ship the materials across to our islands on Government-owned ferries. Procurement regulations add to the cost, too.
Ironically, the Scottish Government’s rural and islands housing action plan includes a section called “Delivering the Right Homes in The Right Places”. The Government’s definition of rural does not align with that or, indeed, with any ordinary person’s definition of rural.
Ms Grant, you need to wind up.
That is why the policy is working against rural areas and adding to depopulation. The Government needs to provide a degree of parity for rural areas and must reform its classification of rural housing. That will help to provide homes in rural areas.
16:44
I strongly believe that the quantity, quality, cost and affordability of housing is the social issue of our time. The statistics that we have heard make that clear and, as the representative of the most urban and densely populated part of Scotland, I have housing issues in our communities as part of my and my team’s daily work.
The impact on other public policy areas is also clear. I welcome the minister’s engagement on the challenges that we face in Edinburgh since he has come into post and the actions that he has taken.
Of course, whether it is Edinburgh, which has the most acute housing crisis in Scotland, or the rural parts of the country, or other parts of the United Kingdom and beyond, it is important to remember that the housing crisis—it is a crisis—has been decades in the making and will be extremely complex to change. Because of the impact of international finance, the issue goes well beyond even the borders of the UK.
For some context to where we are, I will quote John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times, who wrote in January:
“Aside from the occasional blip, average house prices were roughly four times average earnings in the UK for 80 years between the 1910s and 1990s. This was a fixed characteristic of British society. Knuckle down, save for a few years and buy in your late twenties: simple. Then the ratio doubled”,
or increased by 100 per cent,
“in the space of a decade.”
That was in the 1990s. The last time the jump in prices was that high,
“cars had not yet been invented, Queen Victoria was on the throne and home ownership was the preserve of a wealthy minority.”
I quote that because all the issues that colleagues have rightly emphasised today stem from the challenge of how unaffordable it has become over the decades for people to purchase their own home.
We will all make our party-political points, but it has been disappointing to hear some of the remarks that have been made today. We need to share more of the responsibility. The Government is quite openly saying that it has done things that have made a positive contribution but it wants to do more, and here are the other things that it wants to do. For other parties to suggest that they have not been complicit in the crisis is just not correct. While some aspects of housing policy are devolved, the financial aspects are, of course, reserved.
The Truss impact is being felt in the cost. Brexit is a factor, as others have mentioned. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine are external factors, but they have made an impact on the ability to buy and the ability to build. There have been links to earnings and social security.
The fundamental question for the two of us, who represent the city of Edinburgh is: why is the Scottish Government not asking why Manchester is seeing a huge increase in house building and Edinburgh is seeing it collapse? That is fundamentally the question that ministers and SNP members should be asking themselves today.
I regularly ask myself that important question, but there is also a context. As I was about to say, the issue is about more than just supply and demand in this whole scenario. I think that the question that Miles Briggs has raised is about how we increase the supply, particularly of build-to-rent properties. The Labour Party, which lodged the motion, was once upon a time enthusiastic about rent controls—in fact, it tried to compete with our Green colleagues to be the most enthusiastic about rent controls—and now it is arguing against them. [Interruption.] The problem with all of this is the party politics and the petty, sticking-plaster politics. Can we confront this really serious issue for our constituents with solutions and constructive dialogue? [Interruption.] The impact of the ability to buy on homelessness and on the cost of rents affects all our constituencies.
I have a briefing in front of me—others will mention it—about the things that Labour could have done. Labour has been in power in Edinburgh for 35 of my 40 years. I am sure that others will talk about the housing capacity that was sold off by the Labour and Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive. We could go into all of that, but what we need to do, more importantly, is think about the way forward.
I thought that the members who made points about solutions were the most helpful, and I am going to end with a few things that I want to emphasise as solutions to make a positive difference. First, in urban Scotland, we really need to think about the cost of land—others have mentioned it. The cost of land in urban Scotland is one of the primary factors behind why purchasing a home is so difficult.
As a Parliament, as we go into the next 25 years and enter this next chapter of devolution—perhaps we will not have 25 years of devolution because we might, of course, become an independent country in that time—
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is bringing his remarks to a close.
—the ability to borrow will benefit any Scottish Government. We need more capital borrowing powers, particularly if we are going to see cuts to capital budgets for the Scottish Government.
Lastly, for my constituents—the Scottish Government is continuing to consider this—if the project in Granton, with its potential to provide affordable housing in Edinburgh, can be realised, that will make a massive difference. I urge ministers to please deliver the affordable houses that my constituents need in Granton.
When a member has the floor, it is that member who has the floor and not any other member who is sitting at the time. I wanted to clarify that rule in case it had escaped members’ attention.
15:51
It was interesting to be shouted at by Ben Macpherson, but it is always a pleasure to follow him.
I quote:
“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
Those are the very powerful words of Maya Angelou in “All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes”.
“The ache for home lives in all of us”,
but today, in this country, we face a situation that is nothing less than a national disgrace—a housing emergency that the SNP Government has allowed to spiral completely out of control. Let us be absolutely clear that this is not just a housing emergency; it is becoming a housing crisis. We have heard about the homeless and those who live on the streets.
Given that a housing emergency was declared on 15 May—I say with respect that the Government did that only because it was backed into a corner—it is surely reasonable to expect the Government to provide an immediate adaptive response. It is not just the case that the Government has failed to do that; the situation has got worse. There is no excuse and no explanation, particularly for the number of children who are living in temporary accommodation under this—I quote this carefully—incompetent SNP Government.
Let us look at the situation for children and young people. In doing that, I remind those on the Scottish Government benches of the Government’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the consequences of failing to live up to them.
Families across Scotland, including those in East Lothian, are being forced to live in temporary accommodation for an average of 342 days. That is almost a year of instability in the short life of a child—a year of uncertainty. Some 10,000 children in Scotland are trapped in temporary accommodation, which is only slightly less than the combined capacity of all the primary schools in East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian. Imagine that—10,000 children without a secure home. That is the ache for a home that lives in all of us. Those 10,000 children are stuck in bed and breakfast accommodation.
I thank Martin Whitfield for taking an intervention. If he does not want to acknowledge the Truss budget, the cost of living, the cuts to the capital budget and the cuts to financial transactions, will he at least admit the backlog that was caused by the fact that the Labour Administration—along with the Liberal Democrats—built only six council houses in eight years? You started this problem.
Speak through the chair. I call Martin Whitfield.
I am grateful for that intervention. Not one—not one—of the 10,000 children who are now living in temporary accommodation was even born at that time, and I would hazard a guess that those children were not yet even hoped for by any of the families who live there now.
The SNP’s record on housing is, frankly, one of abject failure. The most vulnerable people in Scotland are paying the price for the incompetence. These children and families do not have the luxury of waiting for the SNP to get its act together. They need action, and they need it now.
Those children are completing their homework on a desk or on their knee on a bed that gives under their weight. Those children worry about having to be out of a room by 9 am on a Saturday because they are in temporary accommodation. That is the life that they face day in, day out. It is the ache for a home that lives in all of us.
The Government has admitted that there is a housing emergency but, rather than acting with urgency, its policies have fuelled the crisis.
Will Martin Whitfield give way?
I am more than happy to give way to Kevin Stewart.
As a former housing minister—and probably the housing minister who delivered more affordable homes than any other during the course of devolution, and who would have delivered more had it not been for Covid—I had great co-operation with housing ministers in Wales, who felt that they had the same impediment to delivery as I did, which was capital expenditure from the UK Government.
Briefly, Mr Stewart.
Does Mr Whitfield support increased capital expenditure to build more housing?
I am grateful for Mr Stewart’s contribution and I look forward to his speech.
In 2022-23, in East Lothian, 572 applications were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness. That is 116 per 10,000 of population. Of the 947 people who were associated with those applications, 661 were adults and 286 were children, some of whom were babes in arms.
In 2022-23, there were 393 households in temporary accommodation in East Lothian—that is 80 per 10,000 of population, which is higher than the national average. Edinburgh, West Lothian, East Lothian and Midlothian have the first, fourth, sixth and seventh-highest homelessness rates in Scotland. Of those 393 households, 100 were households with children or pregnant women, and 150 children were in temporary accommodation.
I realise that time is short, and I am disappointed that I took so many contributions rather than interventions, so let me finish by saying that the people of East Lothian, the people of South Scotland and the people of Scotland deserve better. They deserve a Government that cares, acts and delivers real, affordable homes for those who are in most need.
Maya Angelou talked of the “ache for home” that
“lives in all of us”,
and tonight’s vote will confirm or refute that view across the chamber.
15:57
I always welcome the opportunity to talk about housing, so I start by thanking Labour for bringing this debate to the chamber. I agree with much of Labour’s position and we often ask for the same things, but it is a shame that there has not been an awful lot of nuance from the members on the Labour benches so far. Of course, the funding that is available to the Scottish Government to build homes affects how many homes can be built. Cuts to the capital budget and the availability of loans will have an impact.
Paul McLennan was right when he said that Scotland has a good record on preventing homelessness. However, that is not the same as saying that this is the best that we can do, and I do not hear the Scottish Government claiming that this is the best that we can do. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, which contains measures to prevent homelessness, is on its way, and we would not have introduced it if we believed that all preventable homelessness was being prevented.
I agree with Emma Roddick that the Housing (Scotland) Bill contains some good policies, but those policies already exist. People should not be in temporary accommodation for more than two weeks but, in many cases in Edinburgh, they are in such accommodation for two years. The Government is failing, and the Housing (Scotland) bill is sweeping all that failure into a new bill.
I do not agree that the bill is sweeping anything; it is opening up a place for us to have a discussion like this one. However, Miles Briggs has a point in that there is a lot to be said about implementation, as well as targets and records.
It is a shame that Mr Sarwar cannot take his own advice on sticking to the issue and finding consensus, rather than getting personal or party political. Perhaps he does not understand the difference.
We cannot tackle poverty without tackling homelessness. Apart from anything else, homelessness is extremely expensive to go through, and I speak from experience on that. People do not appreciate the cost of temporary accommodation and service charges, the cost of living without a place to store your things, the cost of travelling and of missing work or the cost of interest on overdrafts and pay-day loans. Homelessness pushes people into poverty and it keeps them there.
The briefing that Crisis shared ahead of this debate says that homelessness and the trauma and indignity that it causes are the worst outcomes of our housing emergency, and that is absolutely correct. Experience of homelessness changes people’s physical and mental health and it permanently affects their life chances.
I was grateful to the minister for agreeing back in June to meet me regarding the homelessness emergency. I have chased that up with his office and I hope that he will be able to find time in his extremely busy diary for that meeting soon, as I agree that an emergency response is needed.
Homelessness is traumatic and life changing. To stop the deep harm that it causes, we have to prevent it from happening. I appreciate that duties to prevent homelessness are expected in the Housing (Scotland) Bill, and I look forward to scrutinising them and the plans to implement them very soon. I particularly welcome the forthcoming changes to define people who are at risk of homelessness, which is a type of homelessness that requires intervention.
I said that we cannot tackle poverty without tackling homelessness, but I also note that we cannot eradicate homelessness without eradicating poverty. Punitive measures such as the bedroom tax, the two-child cap and the Tory cuts to universal credit—all upheld by Labour—have an impact on people’s ability to pay for their housing. We know that most families who rent from a private landlord rely on financial support to do so, yet many of them are not getting all that they should, and in the meantime Labour is keeping the two-child cap in place. The rising cost of private renting is a huge concern and it contributes to homelessness, which tells me that rent controls can play a huge part in preventing homelessness.
I hope that the Scottish Government will take this opportunity to be bold and prioritise ending homelessness, ending poverty and ending unfair housing costs over lining the pockets of landlords, and to implement proper rent controls wherever they are needed. I understand that Government gets lobbied extensively by landlords, and I also get the correspondence about pension pots, investments and interest rates. However, when we are in an emergency, we must prioritise. There is no excuse for prioritising anything but a roof over people’s heads and the provision of two of our most fundamental needs—safety and security.
I hope that the minister is ready to make some tough decisions, which might not be popular with some landlords, when the evidence that the Housing (Scotland) Bill will require to be collected shows that rent controls are needed in a particular area. The local context must be taken into account, and I absolutely echo others’ comments that councils know their areas best and that different approaches are needed in the Highlands, Edinburgh and the islands, but it is a reality that evidence does not always win the argument.
It is social housing that most needs to be expanded. As is the case for all my colleagues, housing lists in my region are huge. I welcome every new home that is built in Scotland, but I hope—I say this in response to Rhoda Grant’s points—that there will be space to discuss a clearer target for homes to be built in rural and island areas that includes only rural and island areas. There is no point in having a rural target that includes Invernesian or central belt suburbs. I made that point when I was in Government and had responsibility for population, and it is really good that it is being heard again today.
We also need homes that meet the needs of minority groups and women. We know that there is inequality in the housing system. If someone is disabled, from a racialised minority, LGBTQ or a woman, they are more likely to suffer. LGBTQ people are more likely to experience homelessness; people from racialised minorities tend to spend longer in the homelessness system; and disabled people struggle to find homes that meet their needs. We have an ageing population and we already struggle to provide accessible housing. There needs to be a concerted effort to provide such accommodation across the country. Nobody should have to leave their community, however rural it is or however much water lies between it and the mainland, because they become disabled or their needs change.
Many have said, and it is true, that an emergency needs an emergency response. Urgency on the part of Government right now will be reassuring to young people, people in insecure accommodation and the organisations that support them.
16:03
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, where I declare that I am the owner of long-term tenanted houses in Moray.
I am very interested in the debate and I thank the Labour Party for bringing it to the chamber. Opposition debates always seem to be more interesting than Government ones, because they generate some excitement and enthusiasm, and I am glad that the minister is now paying attention.
I want to concentrate on and drill down into some issues in the Highlands. I did a bit of work on the houses that Highland Council rents out, because that is one way of solving housing problems, but the responses to two FOI requests brought out different figures on how many council houses there are in the Highlands. One suggested that there are 14,494 and the other suggested that there are 15,127. That means that 633 houses have been lost. I am not sure what the council has done with them, but I am sure that it will find them.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will take an intervention on that point.
How many council houses were lost because of the right-to-buy legislation that the Tories supported?
The minister was listening. I was only questioning how many council houses it is thought that there are in the Highlands region. The council gave two different figures. That is the truth of it. They are not lost, but the council could not find them and it did not know how many it has. That suggests that the management is not great.
More than half of the houses that the council has do not reach the energy performance certificate standard that it seems will be required in 2028. The estimated cost to Highland Council of bringing those houses up to the EPC standard will perhaps be more than £300 million.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will take an intervention in a moment, but not now.
The council needs to get those houses in order. I went on to ask it about the houses that it has sitting empty, which it needs to resolve, and I found that 356 houses across the Highlands are sitting empty. It may be said that that is a small number, but 112 single-bedroom houses, 132 two-bedroom houses, 90 three-bedroom houses, 12 four-bedroom houses and one five-bedroom house are all sitting empty. If we add up all the beds, there are 700-odd beds in the Highlands in properties that are unused by Highland Council.
I will give way now, if it still appeals to the member to intervene.
I agree with Mr Mountain’s point about the importance of ensuring that there is investment in energy efficiency to bring homes up to standard. Does he agree that one of the best ways to do that and allow more resources to come into play is to remove VAT from the refurbishment and repair of existing properties?
This will probably be the end of my political career, but I certainly agree with the member. I will come on to say that there should be reductions in VAT, input costs and perhaps even taxation when householders carry out improvements to their homes.
The Highland Council has estimated that it needs £618,000 to get the 356 houses that are sitting empty into a fit standard for occupation. Otherwise, they will continue to sit empty. The problem is that I am not sure how the council will work out the economics of that, because the loss of rent could amount to half a million pounds each year. I also found out that it is paying council tax for empty properties to the tune of £168,000 a year, with that money going from its housing department to another part of the council.
Those are examples of simple things that councils could do to get themselves and the houses in their stock sorted out. I am sure that that is relevant to the whole of Scotland.
I turn to the way that the Government has dealt with private landlords—of which I am one, as I clearly declared. The number of houses that are available for private rent has dropped from 360,000 to 300,000. People do not want to get involved in the sector because the Government is putting them off. It cannot be said that it is not, because it is. There is no stability in the letting laws. The Government seems to change them every time it wants to. I do not believe in rent controls, because evidence has proved that, when rent controls come off, rent prices rocket up. There is also no clarity on the EPC requirement by 2028. Landlords need more clarity on that.
My third answer is to encourage people and builders to build across Scotland. As I said to the Parliament yesterday, 10 developers have moved south because they no longer want to build houses in Scotland. I say well done to the Government on that, as it is definitely going to solve our housing crisis. The Government needs to address that.
My fourth answer—Mr Stewart stole a bit of this—is that we need to get affordable housing and housing in general back into the rented sector by making it easier for people to develop houses and make them warmer. There is a VAT reduction on a house if it has been empty for a set period of time, but there are still uninhabited homes across Scotland. With a little help in that regard from the UK Government—I understand that it is not the Scottish Government—we could bring more houses back into use.
I have made those four suggestions as things for us to talk about in this Parliament instead of blaming everyone else. I have come up with some ideas. Let us see whether anyone runs with them.
16:10
I am pleased to speak in this Labour Party debate because, everywhere we turn, we can see the human tragedy of this housing emergency.
In Glasgow, people are sleeping in the streets; waiting lists for social housing are through the roof; half-finished housing developments sit wasting and incomplete; queues for hot food at homelessness projects circle the streets; thousands of children are without a permanent place to call home; there is a chronic shortage of accessible homes, with mums carrying their grown-up children upstairs and people trapped in their homes several storeys up; and heartbreaking numbers of people are dying because they are homeless.
All that, and still the Government says that it has “a good track record” and continues to fail to respond to the housing emergency. Rather than unblock planning, release building opportunities, empower the construction of affordable homes or support families to buy homes, this Government has allowed homelessness to rise, failed to meet building targets, failed to update key guidelines, left children in temporary accommodation and cut the affordable housing budget by 22 per cent in real terms—a cut that the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations has called
“an absolute hammer blow for tackling homelessness and poverty across Scotland”.
At a time when more than 10,000 children are stuck in temporary accommodation, with 42 children becoming homeless every day and a household becoming homeless every 16 minutes, reducing the affordable homes budget should have been unthinkable—but not for this failing Government. To make matters worse, it cut that budget at a time when house building is down by 17 per cent and new starts, including affordable housing starts, are at an 11-year low.
If the member thinks that that cut should not have been made to the housing budget—and I just sat through the end of health questions, where Labour and Conservative members were asking for more money to spend on NHS capital—where should the money have come from? The money is finite and it needs to come from somewhere, so can the member suggest what budget should have been cut?
First, I would remind the cabinet secretary that she is in government. Secondly, with a 9 per cent cut to capital spending, how does the cabinet secretary explain the 22 per cent cut to affordable housing? It does not add up. Those are this Government’s choices and it should stop running away from them.
In Glasgow alone, the SNP council’s actions—or inactions—have meant that there have been 300 fewer builds than were planned. That is 300 fewer homes available for people in Glasgow on the SNP council’s watch. Homelessness in Glasgow is up 15 per cent and rough sleeping has doubled. We need more houses, not fewer.
While the SNP misses its targets, my constituents miss security, a roof over their heads and a home to call their own. That is not just inept—it is shameful. The Government is failing every single family and person without a place to call a home in Glasgow and across Scotland and the minister says that that is “a good track record”. Well, I would hate to see a bad track record.
Will the member give way?
I will in a moment.
On bad track records, let me turn to the Government’s record on accessible housing. Like members across the chamber, my inbox and surgeries are full of people trapped in inaccessible properties and living in misery: a woman who washes, uses the loo and eats in the same room because the rest of her home is not accessible; a mum who carries her son upstairs—up the outside stairs—then goes back out for the shopping and the wheelchair; and a daughter who is sharing a bedroom with two children so that her dad can move in, as his own house is not accessible. That is no life for anyone in 2024 and it is happening on this Government’s watch.
I believe that a member was seeking to intervene.
Gordon MacDonald—briefly.
Between 1999 and 2007, the Labour Party sold 132,000 social housing units. Would the member agree that not selling them would have helped the issue of people looking for a home that she just highlighted? In the past 25 years in Wales, house building has dropped by 45 per cent, which is why 139,000 people in Wales are looking for a social house.
Briefly, Mr MacDonald.
Who is to blame for that? Is it UK Labour or Welsh Labour?
Before I call Pam Duncan-Glancy to respond, I encourage members who are making an intervention to be brief, rather than make a contribution. I will give Pam Duncan-Glancy some of the time back.
I remind the member that we are in Scotland and that, when we were in government, we built 5,000 more houses per year than this Government has done.
Shelter Scotland set out perfectly in its briefing the experiences of people who face discrimination and marginalisation. It said that discrimination and marginalisation deepen due to the
“unequal nature of our housing system”.
The examples that I gave a moment ago illustrate that.
Tens of thousands of disabled people are languishing on housing waiting lists. With the Government’s woeful record on house building and existing stock being inaccessible, they have little prospect of getting a home that fits. In Glasgow, as I am sure is the case in many in other places, a lot of properties were built many years ago, before accessibility was a thing—if I can say that. Many disabled people therefore need adaptations in order to keep their homes.
There is some great practice by housing associations and developers on that, some of which I heard about at first hand at the accessible housing summit in Dundee last week. Rather than harnessing that good practice, the Government is working against them by cutting the stage 3 adaptations budget by 25 per cent, and not even telling councils what their allocation will be for this year. Following his statement yesterday, I asked the minister about that and I did not get an answer, so I will ask that, in closing, he confirms what assessment the Government has made of that cut and how it thinks that it will affect our constituents’ ability to have a suitable place to call home.
As well as making the most of what we have, we have to build more houses to resolve the emergency for disabled people—just as we have to do with housing in general—including owner-occupiers and tenants. Let us not make the same mistakes of the past and build more homes that we need to spend cash to adapt in the future; let us get it right the first time. There is no excuse this time: accessibility is a thing now, and if the Government forgets about that, I am here to remind it.
As we have heard, not only is development too slow, but the Government is using a 25-year-old design system. I would be grateful if the Government could move apace to address that and bring forward accessible design standards sooner rather than later.
The Parliament has declared an emergency, councils have declared an emergency and families are living in an emergency, but the Government and, I am afraid, the minister are content to sit tight, list working groups and blame someone else. Not us, Presiding Officer, because that is not good enough. The minister has had his chance to fix it, and he has missed it. He has failed and the Government has failed. Both should go and give the people of Scotland a housing minister and a Government that they deserve.
I advise members that the time that we had available has now been exhausted. Therefore, members will be kept to time. I call Christine Grahame. [Interruption.]
16:17
I do not know why that always happens when I stand up.
Scotland’s national housing emergency has numerous causes, some of which were enumerated by Ben Macpherson. When we speak of housing, we are all speaking of having a right to a home. First, I will give some background. Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy helped many former social housing tenants to get onto the housing ladder. It was a good idea at the time, but it destroyed the supply of council houses for rent. That is still having an impact today, although the SNP Scottish Government got rid of the policy.
Scotland’s population has risen from just over 5 million at the start of the 21st century to 5.4 million in 2022. Furthermore, our ageing population means that there are many more single-person households, which is impacting on the number of new houses that are needed. In Scotland, there are at least 2,509,300 single households.
The effects of the 2008 financial crash, exacerbated by the austerity measures that were introduced by the Tory-Liberal coalition Government from 2010, then the Tory Government from 2015, and now being continued by Labour—goodness knows what Rachel Reeves’s budget will say—are having an impact. There is also the impact of Brexit on the cost of construction materials and the supply of workers, which I think Anas Sarwar conceded. Those are some of the economic realities. As a result, the average cost of building a new house in Scotland is nudging towards £200,000, which must impact the Scottish Government’s affordable housing programme. I have been advised that, in the Borders, that estimate can reach £500,000. Smaller rural developments are costly, as Rhoda Grant referenced.
I have local and national suggestions for the Scottish Government. Locally, in the Borders, £8 million was returned to the Scottish Government as the council could not proceed, through housing associations, with new builds within the contractual timescale. Some reasons that were given were costs of materials exceeding original estimates and lack of construction workforce. That £8 million was then not available to renovate some of the 200 houses currently empty in the Borders. Flexibility over the use of that funding would have been good.
Nationally, the Scottish Government has three key priorities: economic growth, eradicating child poverty and tackling climate change. That can be achieved in part by maximising investment in new house building.
The £200 million cut to the Scottish Government’s housing budget that was made in December 2023 should be reversed. I suggest reversing the decision on the active travel budget, which has about the same amount of funding. It is a hard choice to make, but, respectfully, I suggest that the Government puts housing first.
The Scottish Government could authorise and encourage local councils and housing associations to build new houses for sale as well as for rent. The surplus income from sales should then be used to subsidise the costs of building new houses for social rent.
The Scottish Government and, indeed, local authorities could invest some of the £20 billion of available pension funds money in building at least 100,000 houses for rent. I understand that funding mechanisms are already in place in parts of the UK that protect those investments. At the end of the borrowing period, I understand that the ownership of the houses reverts to the Government or local authority without any need for additional payment.
Another issue is the workforce. On 17 May 2024, the Construction Industry Training Board in Scotland published a report stating that an extra 5,220 workers a year will be needed to meet the continued construction growth expected over the next five years. For almost a third of construction employers, as has been mentioned, finding suitably skilled staff remains a key challenge, particularly with more older workers retiring and not being replaced.
There are local and national problems and solutions. If the Scottish Government priority is to eradicate child poverty, where better to start than with affordable homes for rent in the public sector? That is where I started.
As for economic growth, that would go hand in hand with that investment. In Scotland, such a programme could create more than 30,000 new jobs, more than £500 million additional income from construction taxes, more than £1 billion savings to the NHS—because a bad home or no home leads to illness—and £1 billion savings from the reduction in homelessness.
In conclusion—this is quite controversial—transport is considered to be so important that it has a dedicated cabinet secretary. We have a fundamental right to a home. I cannot follow why housing does not have a dedicated seat at the Cabinet table.
16:22
As an MSP for the Lothian region and a former City of Edinburgh councillor, I welcome the chance to speak in the debate.
Miles Briggs has already highlighted the crisis that Edinburgh, as our capital, is facing. In November 2023, the City of Edinburgh Council formally declared a housing emergency. Council figures show that about 5,000 households in the capital were in temporary accommodation, which was the highest number in Scotland. Although housing is a nationwide crisis, it manifests most acutely in Edinburgh. The city has the lowest proportion of social housing in Scotland, but the demand is immense. In Edinburgh, about 200 bids are made for every social rented home that becomes available.
When I was a councillor, the SNP-Labour administration presented “Programme for the Capital: The City of Edinburgh Council Business Plan 2017-22”, which was approved in August 2017. It stated that the council wanted to
“Deliver a programme to build at least 10,000 social and affordable homes over the next 5 years”,
—that is, by now—
“with a plan to build 20,000 by 2027”.
However, since the 20,000 homes commitment was made in 2017, and was subsequently revised to 25,000 in March 2023, only 9,000 new affordable homes were expected to be approved by 31 March 2024, and only 8,000 have been completed. That was a commitment by an SNP and Labour run Edinburgh council, and it is a commitment that it has failed to deliver, despite having said in March 2022 that it was on track to fulfil it, in response to a question that was posed by Conservative councillor Jim Campbell.
Declaring a housing emergency is all well and good, but it is an emergency of the Government’s own making. As Ben Macpherson said, it has been “decades in the making” and has not happened overnight. The SNP Government and the Scottish Labour Party cannot keep blaming others while they are in power and failing to meet their own targets.
In the spirit of collective responsibility, would Sue Webber agree that the right to buy created significant problems in Edinburgh and elsewhere and that it is good that it was ended in 2014?
What everyone in the chamber forgets is that there are still people living in those homes: the homes that were bought have not disappeared. Families have been brought up and are having fantastic lives in those homes. They are still being lived in, which is a fact that we cannot escape from. Let me cast members’ minds back a little bit.
Will the member give way?
I have just started. If you do not mind, Ms Roddick, I will move on a bit.
Rent controls were first mentioned in the chamber by Scottish Labour and were quickly embraced by the SNP. Rent controls have been an unmitigated disaster, when it comes to their unintended consequences. We have seen rents rising in Scotland faster than they have anywhere else in the UK, including London. Industry leaders in Scotland have raised concerns about rent controls and about the Scottish Government’s proposed housing bill. More Homes More Quickly has expressed concern about the unintended consequences of rent controls, including a reduction in supply and in access to the private rented sector, which could subsequently impact on lower-income groups who are in need of housing.
That is not scaremongering. Around 21,000 flats and houses have disappeared from Scotland’s private rented sector in a single year. Statistics—[Interruption.]
I am happy to take an intervention if someone wants to intervene.
As with the houses that were mentioned in the member’s earlier comments, surely those houses still exist and are still being used for some function.
I will also say about the houses that were purchased under right to buy that certainly not all of them are being used as homes at this point, because many of them are Airbnbs.
In the capital city, where we are sitting now, 3,000 council homes are, as my colleague Miles Briggs said, lying vacant that should be repurposed and brought up to scratch. People should be living in them—[Interruption.]—so why are our elected members in Edinburgh not fixing those homes? That is not scaremongering.
Statistics that have been published by the Scottish Association of Landlords have revealed that the SNP rent controls have damaged the country’s private rented sector. I am certain that members across the chamber can concur; my inbox is full of messages from people whose tenancies are being ended and whose private landlords are choosing to take their properties off the market. They are contacting me in desperation because they are about to become homeless.
Despite clear evidence that rent controls do not work and instead merely aggravate the problem, last month the City of Edinburgh Council backed a motion that was introduced by the Scottish Greens to support rent controls—the first council to do so since the introduction of the Scottish Government’s Housing (Scotland) Bill. [Interruption.]
I thought they would, too.
Common sense did not prevail, and the council did not support the councillors from the Conservative group in Edinburgh who submitted an alternative motion that really drilled down into the issues that rent controls will bring.
Furthermore, the SNP housing bill is going to add a £5.5 million burden to already overstretched councils, which have warned that the research that will be required to assess the sector for rent controls will equate to that amount. That is just throwing good money after bad. We need to start prioritising where we invest. Just think how many homes could be bought with £5.5 million—not that many in East Dunbartonshire.
We would reverse the rent freeze and the eviction moratorium. We will continue to oppose rent caps while ensuring that renters get a fair deal.
Rent controls are not the only issue that is contributing to the housing emergency, but they are driving investors away. Due to a lack of houses being built, there were 4,969 households in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh on 31 March 2024, which is a 4 per cent rise from 2023.
Twelve of the 32 councils have declared a housing emergency, and the SNP Government has presided over a Scotland-wide housing crisis, coupled with an increase in homelessness with thousands of people, including 10,000 children, now stuck in temporary accommodation. Willie Rennie made a plea to support investors, private builders and private landlords—
You need to wind up.
I am doing that.
All that could be addressed by the SNP Government but, in SNP style, it blames others and cites UK Government budget cuts and austerity as causes of the housing emergency.
16:30
I want to put on record three clear facts that have often been ignored by contributors to this debate. First, the delivery of social and affordable homes in Scotland under the SNP Scottish Government has been far greater than delivery in other parts of the UK. That is just a fact. That means that delivery of new affordable homes has been better in Scotland than it has in England under successive Labour and Conservative Governments, and better than it has in Wales under Labour. That is just a fact. Indeed, delivery is also far better than it was under the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive here in Holyrood.
Secondly—this is just as important—the Scottish Government must plot a path to our doing far better on delivery of new and affordable homes than we have been doing, given the clear housing emergency. Indeed, it is self-evidently a UK-wide housing emergency. Let us lift our heads and look at the experience not just in Scotland but right across the UK.
Thirdly, Scotland’s capital budget cut from the UK Government significantly undermines our efforts to deliver as many homes as we would like to deliver to tackle that crisis.
Those are just facts that the Opposition parties simply wish to ignore. That leads me to a fourth aspect, which I thought the Minister for Housing outlined clearly. Scotland needs a partnership approach to tackling the housing emergency. That partnership must involve the Scottish and UK Governments, councils, housing associations, housing charities, house builders, financiers, and innovators—everyone and anyone who has something meaningful to offer. What is the approach of the Labour Party in Holyrood today? It is to ignore all that, to ignore the facts, to play the man and not the ball and to attack Scotland’s Minister for Housing and suggest that there is nothing new or meaningful to address the housing emergency. Shame on the Labour Party.
Will the member take an intervention?
In a moment, Mr Sarwar—I am coming to you.
Speak through the chair.
I am coming to Mr Sarwar. Shame on him for suggesting that any of us on these benches does not know the human cost of the housing emergency. I see it every week in my constituency case load, and I will work with everyone and anyone, including the Labour Party, to do better—but I will take no lessons from the Labour Party.
Bob Doris wants not to play the man and to play the ball instead, but the most important thing is that the debate is about the 40,000 people who applied for housing and homelessness support last year, the 10,000 children who are living in temporary accommodation and the thousands of people whose human rights were breached, along with the law being breached, because they were not given access to a temporary home. There is no addressing the actual crisis. Instead, the member is flailing about trying to find somebody else to blame.
Mr Sarwar should listen. I say to him that that is why political parties need ideas and action and not just soundbites, which are what the Labour Party appears to have this afternoon.
I accept, however, that none of what I have set out changes the lived experience of the too many people in Scotland who are homeless and in temporary accommodation and of people more generally who are in housing need. I therefore want to discuss a partnership approach that can improve the situation in Glasgow, which is clearly under significant strain. Through my casework in Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, I see at first hand the demand for affordable homes far outstripping supply.
The factors that feed into the housing emergency will vary across the UK and Scotland. A key factor for Glasgow has been the previous UK Government’s heartless and cack-handed management of our asylum and refugee system. The UK Government proclaimed, “Stop the boats,” and procrastinated when it came to making decisions in the asylum process for people who have come to our shores fleeing persecution and seeking shelter and safety here. Many are denied the right to work and have to survive in the most austere circumstances and face deep poverty.
It is hardly surprising that, when the UK Government decided to fast-track asylum claims—what had it been doing all those years?—and offered no strategic or financial support to Glasgow to support our city, the consequences were seriously damaging. In 2022-23, 1,344 people were granted asylum seeker status, then made their way into Glasgow’s and Scotland’s housing system. In the past year, that number doubled to 2,709—a doubling of demand.
When the UK Government grants status, it offers not one penny of financial support to Glasgow City Council, or to any other local authority, to allow it to plan strategically to ensure that housing needs can be met. That is unfair on our councils, on asylum seekers, and on everyone else in our city who is facing significant housing needs. That must change.
With a new UK Labour Government in place, Labour must show that it has a different moral compass to its predecessor. A strategic partnership approach to tackling housing pressures must be developed between the UK and Scottish Governments, as well as Glasgow City Council. That has to mean meaningful financial resource coming from the UK Government. It also has to mean a culture and systems change.
I understand that while refugee families await the UK Government granting them status, there can be no meaningful conversation or planning around what rehousing options might look like for those families. This Parliament is currently considering legislation for a homelessness prevention duty across a variety of public bodies in Scotland. The UK Home Office and partnerships must have a similar duty when it comes to refugees and the asylum process.
Additional funds could develop a range of housing options—not only in Glasgow but elsewhere in Scotland. Working with people who are seeking secure status to explore options in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland can ease pressure in our city and address population decline in other parts of our country.
I would welcome consideration of a pilot project to be developed between the UK Government, the Scottish Government and our councils to put in place a funded, structured, empowered, respectful and voluntary framework to see how we can best support all those who are in housing need, including asylum-seeking families.
I would welcome a meeting with Paul McLennan, the housing minister, to discuss that further.
16:36
There have been some constructive and positive elements to the debate. We heard some positive suggestions from Ben Macpherson, who asked for a partnership approach—albeit more in hope than expectation, I think, given some of the other contributions. We also had some good suggestions from Emma Roddick, Bob Doris and Christine Grahame. Although he is not here just now, I think that Edward Mountain also tried to make some positive suggestions.
It is important to try and think of positive suggestions. I myself have written to the Government on that. In my view, the devolution of housing benefit, which has long been talked about but never agreed, could present new opportunities, not least in relation to housing for homelessness, which is very expensive and unsatisfactory, if the budget was dealt with in the correct way.
An idea, which was perhaps mentioned by Christine Grahame, is local government pension funds. I declare an interest in relation to my own pension fund. The Falkirk pension fund has contributed towards new house building in that area. From an objective point of view, you would think that pension funds would find it attractive to build houses, as it provides a long-term investment. On that, if they build houses that are very energy efficient—I know that Willie Rennie was not too keen on the Passivhaus as an ideal—such houses can reduce to virtually nil the energy costs of living in a house, which means that they can charge more rent. Apart from being good for the environment, an emphasis on new build and energy efficiency is good for homelessness numbers as well.
In relation to the housing that we do have, a policy of having targeted affordable housing for people such as social care workers and other workers who are very important in areas would be a good idea, if it is possible.
I have to say, however, that the rest of the debate has been pretty dispiriting stuff. In fact, it has not really been a debate for many people; it has been a press release that has found words in this chamber, which is unfortunate. I think that it was Anas Sarwar who said that it was “pathetic, inept and shameful.” I think that that has been the contribution that we have had from the Labour Party.
The Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition that we have in the Parliament has refused to acknowledge even the existence of some of the most fundamental causes of the housing crisis. There has been no mention of the cost of living crisis, no mention of rocketing energy costs and no mention of Liz Truss—but there is no surprise there. Brexit has had a massive impact on construction costs and on labour availability—that was also not mentioned by any of the parties. The budget cuts that the minister mentioned in both capital funding and financial transactions are huge, but there has been no mention of that.
This is critical: no one in the coalition of others who want to be the Government in this place has mentioned, or spoken out against, £160 million being taken out of the Scottish Government’s budget at 90 minutes’ notice. They have all accepted that and they all support it, but if they accept that, they must accept the fact that the money is not available for us to do the things that we want to do. There was not a word from any party about that.
I think that Willie Rennie must have been joking when he said that we should go for volume. This is a guy who supports the Liberal Democrats, who built six houses in eight years between 1999 and in 2007. “Go for volume,” says Willie. He said that the Government should be embarrassed, but I think that Willie Rennie should be embarrassed by that shocking record.
Will the member accept an intervention?
No I will not take it. He never takes interventions from me, unfortunately.
They spent eight years building six council houses at the same time as the right to buy was going around.
Those are the fundamentals of the crisis that we have, but that is not even being recognised by the other parties. This is a completely false debate. It kind of takes this Parliament’s name in vain if they cannot even properly discuss the foundations of why we have a housing crisis. If this is all about attacking one party, they are not going to get to the bottom of the crisis, which shows that they have no serious intention of dealing with the crisis.
The member will recall that, at least in the past decade, I have consistently raised in the chamber concerns about homelessness and rough sleeping and have been dismissed time and again by a succession of different ministers. For the record, I state that Labour, when in government, built 5,000 more houses than you build every single year.
Please speak through the chair.
Facts matter.
Jackie Baillie just cannot escape from the fact that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats built six council houses in the course of eight years and accepted the right to buy, which diminished the stock of housing available at affordable prices.
We have a point of order from Mark Griffin. Please resume your seat, Mr Brown.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Will you alert members as to how to correct the record? Mr Brown has repeatedly said that Labour built only six council houses during eight years in office. It was hundreds of council houses—
That is not a point of order.
—and thousands of social houses, so I advise Mr Brown to look at the statistics and to correct the record.
Please resume your seat, Mr Griffin: that is not a point of order. I can give you the time back, Mr Brown.
Despite all the things that I have said about the budget crisis and Liz Truss, the Labour Party is currently telling us that the UK’s finances have been completely ruined by what the Tories did but that that apparently had no effect on Scotland. That is what Labour is asking us to believe.
Let us compare that with Labour’s track record in Wales, as Gordon MacDonald did. The Labour Party has an appalling record in Wales. We have seen what Labour does when it gets a chance of government: six houses, whether that was in eight years or the last four. I am happy to correct the record if I am wrong but, as I understand it, Labour created six houses in an eight-year period, or perhaps in the last four years. That is Labour’s record—that is what happened. When the Labour Party tries to put forward a prospectus for housing in Scotland at the next election, people should remember its record.
Of course we must look at how to increase housing. How can we increase housing for veterans, which is a very important area? We do not have the ability to meet the demands of all veterans. How do we combat the Brexit-fuelled inflation in labour costs? Those are some of the things that the other parties could have discussed in this debate, but they were not discussed. Instead, it has been the usual party-political nonsense.
I have one final question. Of course there are lots of questions to ask and of course the Government has to answer them. That is one of the responsibilities of government, the biggest of which is how to increase the pool of capital to build houses. The big question that I asked, and to which I never got an answer, although there is an answer that is known by the Labour Party, is how many people in Scotland are going to die because of the cut to the winter fuel allowance there has been imposed by the Labour Party?
We move to the closing speeches.
16:43
The award-winning journalist Vicky Spratt recently published a book titled “Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain’s Housing Emergency”. She points out that behind the undeniable reality of a housing emergency lies a series of separate but connected emergencies: the instability of the private rented sector, unaffordable housing, the hoarding of property wealth, a lack of social housing and, of course, rising homelessness and all that that involves.
The housing crisis is inextricably linked to and bound up with wealth inequality, and to talk about wealth is to discuss the inequalities of class as well as gender, sexuality, race and other categories of marginalisation. If we are serious about tackling the housing emergency, we must tackle wealth inequality, yet we have heard little about that today.
The First Minister has made it very clear that the number 1 mission for his Government is to tackle child poverty. We have debated various aspects of how we should do that here before, but it has been quite noticeable that few members have linked child poverty to the housing emergency. Across the UK, there are 17.5 million adults without a safe, secure or stable home. When we include children, that number rises to 22 million people—that is one in three people.
The homelessness figures that were published last week show that women who are mothers are particularly affected. We know that 26 per cent of households assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness contain children and that households with children spend, on average, the longest time in temporary accommodation. More than half spend more than six months there, and a quarter spend more than a year in temporary accommodation before their cases are closed. That period is more than three years for 4 per cent of households with children, compared to just 1 per cent of households without children, and 3 per cent of households with children are placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. As we have heard this afternoon, there were 10,110 children in temporary accommodation as of 31 March this year—the highest number in the time series.
If we are serious in our ambitions to tackle child poverty, we must consider how we tackle the housing emergency. We cannot just tweak the edges of our housing system. As Ben Macpherson said so passionately, sticking-plaster politics will not cut it. Our housing system is broken. It does not serve people. It views housing as a commodity or an investment, not a right or a home. That drives up prices and leaves many people—especially those on lower incomes—unable to afford homes. It channels investment away from affordable and social housing to speculative property investment. Without sufficient public housing, the private market dominates.
The housing market has failed to meet demand, particularly in rural areas, as Ariane Burgess and Rhoda Grant described. That has knock-on consequences for public service workers who cannot find homes where they need to be for work. The market has also failed to address environmental and quality issues. I am sure that we all have had constituents come to us with problems of cold, draughty, mould-ridden homes. Unlike Willie Rennie, I think that we should build homes that meet the standards that evidence tells us will keep people warm and healthy and so reduce the burden on other public services. That is prevention in action.
That is why the Housing (Scotland) Bill matters. It is a start at tackling some of the structural problems in our housing system, and rent controls are crucial to that. Sue Webber ascribed problems that we currently face to rent controls, and they do not even exist yet. Miles Briggs says that rent controls do not work. I presume that that is why cities across the world—from Paris, Berlin and Stockholm to New York, San Francisco and Montreal—all have rent controls. Incidentally, artists and musicians in Montreal credit rent controls for the thriving creative and cultural sector in that affordable city.
Rent controls matter because they tackle soaring rent prices that leave tenants vulnerable to exploitation by landlords. They also prevent tenants from being priced out of their homes and communities. They give tenants greater security and stability in their housing and reduce the power imbalance between landlords and renters. They contribute to long-term affordability and help to address inequality by ensuring that housing remains within the reach of people on lower incomes. They combat housing insecurity and, importantly, investment insecurity.
I know that Maggie Chapman does not want to hear it from me, but has she read the Institute for Economic Affairs report that examined 196 studies in 100 countries over 60 years and drew the conclusion that rent controls do far more harm than good?
I have read that report. It depends on what we think counts as success. If it means making homes affordable for the majority of people, rent controls are a success. If it means making some rich people slightly less rich, I am not that bothered about that.
In short, rent controls play an important part in reducing homelessness, but there are many other actions that we must explore in order to tackle homelessness. As Crisis and other organisations say, prevention must be a priority, as must investment in social housing. Christine Grahame outlined some clear mechanisms to deliver that, including the housing first model. We also need to address youth and hidden homelessness, and we must take a holistic approach to support services, including mental health support services, and so much more.
I thank Paul McLennan for his intervention during Ariane Burgess’s speech—
You need to conclude.
—in which he restated his commitment to robust rent controls, but we need more than just assurances. We need to see the details.
To conclude—
We have no more time, Ms Chapman. I must ask you to resume your seat.
I call Graham Simpson to speak for up to six minutes.
16:50
I hear you loud and clear, Presiding Officer.
It has been a frustrating and, at times, spicy debate, but we should not need to be having it. The frustration pours out of the Labour motion when it says that the Government
“has failed to respond adequately to the housing emergency that the Parliament declared in May”
this year.
We are getting used to the Government ignoring the Parliament, but, on this occasion, the Minister for Housing actually reluctantly accepted the situation. How the Government reacts to the gravity of the situation is the important thing. An emergency demands an emergency response, as Anas Sarwar said, but we have not had that.
I read the minister’s head-in-the-sand statement yesterday with disbelief. He blamed Brexit, inflation and Westminster—not the Scottish Government at all—for our severe problems. As Homes for Scotland has said, people in need of a new home, or any home, deserve better than that. The problems have been long in the making—Ben Macpherson made that point very well.
In June, the cross-party group on housing, which I convene, had a productive discussion with five of the councils that had declared a housing emergency. At least two of the councils that were represented at the meeting said that it was likely that there would be no new social housing projects in their areas in 2024-25, and three noted that they were already failing to meet their statutory obligations on homelessness. Miles Briggs made that point. There was consensus that action needed to be taken as a matter of urgency.
We wrote to the minister and called for a national emergency plan that would address how the quality and quantity of housing stock would be improved, create more social housing and temporary accommodation and provide solutions to deal with rising rates of homelessness. That plan has not materialised in the past four months.
Last week’s statistics bear out the consequences of the Scottish Government’s prolonged inaction. The figures that were published last week should have been a wake-up call. Half of Scotland’s population is now living in a local authority area with a housing emergency, and 17 councils have experienced an increase in the number of homelessness applications. In my own patch, in South Lanarkshire, there has been an 8 per cent increase in the past year. Meanwhile, there has been a 17 per cent decrease in the number of house building starts and completions in all sectors over the past year. The number of approvals under the affordable housing supply programme has dropped by 44 per cent from 2020, and only 22,700 affordable homes have been completed towards the Government’s target of delivering 110,000 by 2032.
That is part of a pattern of SNP failure, as the Government previously fell short of delivering on its target of building 50,000 affordable homes by 2021.
Will the member give way?
No, I will not.
Yesterday, the minister tried to blame everyone but himself for the mess that we are in. I do not actually blame Paul McLennan for that mess—well, not entirely. He was forced to work with Greens in the Government who forced through disastrous rent controls, which have led to rents rising faster in Scotland than they have risen anywhere else in the UK. You could not make it up. According to the Scottish Property Federation, an estimated £700 million in residential investment has been paused or lost due to the rent freeze. Patrick Harvie is no longer in the Government, but the Housing (Scotland) Bill proposes a system of long-term rent controls that has those who might want to invest here scared stiff.
The minister has set up a housing investment task force, and those who are on it will not stay scared for long. They will run for the hills. Some of them have done so already. In all honesty, he would be better off ruling it out altogether if he wants any confidence to return.
It is little wonder that we read reports that Kate Forbes—it is sometimes Shirley-Anne Somerville—has taken over the bill. The minister needs to spell out quickly and in detail just what he intends to do, and that does not mean him saying, “We’ll leave everything to regulations.” If we get this wrong, we could be facing a loss of £3.2 billion in direct housing investment, according to the Scottish Property Federation.
We have had a number of good contributions today. Rhoda Grant spoke about rural housing. Miles Briggs mentioned the multiple talking shops that the minister has set up. Sadly, Ariane Burgess would not take any interventions, so we do not know whether she supports the Labour motion. Martin Whitfield spoke about the general impact of homelessness on children, which is a very important point. Edward Mountain talked about empty homes and his frustration that we do not have compulsory sales orders—he is quite right. Christine Grahame made a very good point about VAT that I agree with.
At the end of it, we have a housing emergency and we have not had a response. I agree with the Labour motion. We need action, not words.
16:56
Like many members, I begin by recognising the human impact of bad housing and homelessness. Willie Rennie was not the only one to do so, but he made a thoughtful contribution about that and about the people behind the statistics. I assure him that that impact weighs heavily in my responsibilities.
Emma Roddick also talked about the importance of recognising some of the main drivers of homelessness, such as poverty and inequality, and the imperative for us to look not just at housing and homelessness but at the wider inequalities in our society. She was quite right to point that out. It is exactly why the Government is investing approximately £3 billion this year to support people through the cost of living crisis.
As I said, Mr Rennie gave what I think was one of the most thoughtful contributions. He pointed out some challenges to the Government and, indeed, to us all when he raised some concerns about Passivhaus standards and regulations, and the impact that those have on sectors. I had that in mind when I listened to other members who wish us to go further and faster on regulations, whether on fuel poverty or accessibility. Those are the types of difficult decisions and areas that it is useful to debate in the chamber.
Willie Rennie was also quite right to talk about the partnership approach. I think that he was mainly talking about the private sector, to which I would add local government and the UK Government.
A number of members came forward with genuine ideas about how to deal with the issues. It was good to see an outbreak of consensus in the chamber between Kevin Stewart and Edward Mountain around VAT on refurbishments. Indeed, Edward Mountain mentioned many other issues to do with voids and the reason why social housing properties are empty. The Scottish Government has increased the flexibility of the funding that we now give local government precisely to encourage it to look seriously at what more it can do on those voids. It would be fair to say that the standard and performance on that is mixed.
Ariane Burgess talked about microhousing building standards and made a useful contribution to the debate on where that should sit, which I will think about.
Christine Grahame, Keith Brown and others talked about innovative finance.
Bob Doris mentioned asylum. Just last weekend, I raised with the Home Secretary the impact of the near doubling of homelessness presentations in Glasgow. I asked her whether the council, the Scottish Government and the UK Government could move forward together to see what needs to be done about that. I see that as a shared responsibility, and I hope that she did too.
I will move from some of the more thoughtful contributions to some contributions that I do not think took the debate forward. Let us start with Anas Sarwar. He was right to point to the people behind the statistics and he was right to point out the urgency of the situation, but whereas he mansplained capital and revenue budgets to me, perhaps I can go through some of the details of the impact on that revenue budget. For example, there is £90.5 million on discretionary housing payments, £30.5 million on homelessness prevention and rapid response, £8 million on rapid rehousing transition plans and £2 million for the extra support for local authorities for temporary pressures—roughly £131 million out of the revenue budget. I am sure that we could all think of ways to spend that money that would better prevent homelessness, if only other people took responsibility.
I will not take any lessons from Mr Sarwar on the budget when we see a 9 per cent cut in the capital budget that comes from the UK Government, with financial transactions reducing by more than 60 per cent. Mr Sarwar said:
“Read my lips: no austerity under Labour.”
Tell that to the people who are actually homeless or suffering in bad housing. We then have to take the difficult decisions in this chamber about what we have to do when those budget cuts come our way.
Mr Briggs talked about voids—as did Mr Mountain—and he was quite right to do so. Nearly 10,000 local authority homes were vacant in March 2023. That is a very serious and difficult issue, which we must all—every single local authority and the Scottish Government—take account of. I talked about how we have been flexible in our funding to support work in that area. He and others talked about empty homes, which is also a critical issue. The Government is investing £3.7 million in the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, which has helped to return almost 11,000 homes to active use since 2010.
Will the cabinet secretary give way on that point?
The cabinet secretary is concluding.
We have also looked at what can be done to increase the empty homes council tax premium.
This Government has done a great deal on rural affordable housing. Again, I offer Rhoda Grant the opportunity to see what more can be done in that area. We have taken action on charitable bonds, which the minister announced yesterday, and action on acquisitions and voids, and £600 million has been spent on affordable housing supply this financial year.
Yes, I will accept my responsibility; I simply ask others to do the same—local government, which does so, and the UK Government—because if we can genuinely get together, we can deliver a genuine and thoughtful response to the housing emergency. I am afraid that much of what we have heard from Labour has not given us that today.
17:03
I have to ask how we got here. There was a time when Scotland won international praise for its approach to homelessness. We ended priority need, introduced housing options, ended the right to buy and got people safe and off the streets during the pandemic, but that seems like such a long time ago. Now, we have tens of thousands of people caught in a quagmire of failed policy, struggling in a spiral of destitution and desperation.
Will the member take an intervention?
Perhaps Mr Stewart will give me time to get started.
As Anas Sarwar pointed out, the shocking figures that were released last week have shown that Scotland is sliding towards levels of homelessness that we have not seen since Thatcher tore our country apart in the 1980s. The SNP Government should feel utter shame for squandering the progress that Scotland had made.
The Scottish Housing Regulator has spoken of services being helpless to deal with the rising tide of human misery washing up at its doors and warned of systemic failure. Councils across Scotland began to declare housing emergencies and finally—finally—the Government was dragged kicking and screaming into recognising that something was very wrong, and it declared a Scotland-wide housing emergency in May. However, it did that only when it was under threat of losing the vote.
There are kids living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation without even a toilet of their own and whose mum or dad is having to cook their dinner using shower water. There are people such as my constituent, Suzanne, who, with her husband and five children, is stuck in a house that is damp, inaccessible and too small and which is making the people she loves ill.
Walking down any high street in Scotland—
Will the member be gracious enough to take an intervention?
Yes—certainly.
There is one thing that could be done, which we have not touched on. Quite a lot of Ministry of Defence houses are unoccupied, not only in Edinburgh but across the Highlands. Would Mr Griffin be prepared to take to his Government the option of releasing some of those houses to the Scottish Government to allow it to address housing problems?
I am more than happy to work on a cross-party basis—with Mr Mountain or any other member—on solutions to the housing crisis, because they seem to be in short supply from the Scottish Government.
Walking down any high street in Scotland, we see people in sleeping bags who have been turned away by desperate shelters that have no room and no choice but to give out tents. Organisations are giving out tents rather than beds for the night.
Emma Roddick pointed out that we are all too aware of the effect that the emergency will have on children, who will be traumatised for their entire lives by the lack of a permanent home right now.
As Homes for Scotland has said, we are living through the housing emergency, but we are waiting in vain for the Government to turn the blue lights on. The Government seems to dispute that.
Will the member give way now?
I will give way to Mr Stewart.
I will take Mr Griffin back to the start of his speech, when he talked about homelessness legislation. I paraphrase Iain Gray, who said that we have some of the best homelessness legislation in the world, but we do not have enough houses. That is one of your former leaders. Will Mr Griffin join me in calling on the UK Government to increase capital budgets and increase the financial transactions—or loans—budget, so that we can get on with the job of building?
Please remember to speak through the chair.
I absolutely agree with Mr Stewart, who paraphrased my former colleague Iain Gray. The emergency is caused by a lack of housing supply. That is why I would like the SNP to look at its Government’s record. On average, it has built 5,000 fewer houses in every single year than Labour did in its time in office. That is the cause of the housing crisis that we see just now—17 years of failure by this Government to build the houses that Scotland needs. [Interruption.]
Let us hear Mr Griffin.
The housing minister seems to dispute that failure.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, Mr MacDonald—I need to make progress.
Today and yesterday, and on countless other occasions, Miles Briggs has pointed out that, despite the pillars, the action plans, the meetings, the task forces and the money that has been shuffled about and rejigged, the facts are pretty stark. Things are not getting better—they are much worse.
One in four people need a different home. There are kids at our children’s school who will deal, for the rest of their lives, with the trauma of not having a home. For me, the scariest thing is that all of that is starting to feel normal. It is not normal—there is nothing normal about a Government that is unable to keep children out of hostels. My colleagues have highlighted the ways in which the inability of this Government and the housing minister to prioritise housing has affected people in Scotland.
The Government has claimed that the Labour Party is bringing no ideas to the debate but, across the chamber, there has been no shortage of ideas about what could be done to make things better. Over this debate and others, we have suggested planning improvement; tackling empty homes; dealing with the voids by speeding up electrical reconnections; a council tax escalator on second and empty homes; revised compulsory purchase orders; compulsory sale order powers; NPF4 changes; and truly rural house building.
I have agreed with Mr Macpherson previously about the need to look at VAT on modifications and bringing houses into use. We have talked about pension funds building houses. We are endlessly bringing such ideas to the chamber, but we brought this debate on the housing emergency because the Government has steadfastly refused to acknowledge it or come up with an action plan to solve it.
We are asking for an emergency response. We have brought forward proposals, but we are not alone—Homes for Scotland, Shelter, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the SFHA and the cross-party group on housing, which my colleague Graham Simpson convenes, have all asked for an emergency response from the Government. It has absolutely failed to deliver that, which is why we lodged the motion for debate.
Without resources and drive from the Government, local government will continue to struggle to keep up with the rising demand for houses.
Will the member take an intervention?
I give way to the cabinet secretary.
I regret, Mr Griffin, that you must conclude.
I apologise to the cabinet secretary.
For two years, Mr McLennan has been the minister with responsibility for housing policy and housing budgets. It is simply unacceptable for him to continue to stand on the sidelines, acting as a commentator and blaming everyone and everything other than himself. When 10,000 children have no place to call home, it is on the Minister for Housing. When 40,000 people are homeless, it is on the Minister for Housing. When one in four people do not have the house that they need, it is on the Minister for Housing.
The children who are caught up in this emergency desperately need homes; they cannot wait for the minister to get back on track. He needs to stop blaming everyone else, he needs to take responsibility and, frankly, he has to go.
That concludes the debate on the housing emergency.
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